By Dylan Baddour
A new report by Freedom of Expression advocacy organization Article 19-Mexico attributed a continuing trend of attacks against journalists to the Mexican government’s routine failure to prosecute attackers.
It said that attacks on the Mexican press this year were characterized by chronic repetition and government inaction.
“There is no punishment for those who attack journalists or for public servants whose inaction or negligence permits attackers to continue without sanction while attacks meant to silence the press continue to increase,” the report said.
Mexico is notoriously dangerous for journalists. The Committee to Protect Journalists ranked it seventh, behind Afghanistan, in a list of nations where murders of journalists go unpunished.
In 2012, Mexico enacted bold laws to protect media from violence, including pledging to provide threatened journalists with bodyguards, security cameras, bulletproof vests and armored cars, but the government has still struggled to reign in attacks. A recent UNESCO report called Mexico’s initiative just moderately effective.
Article 19 said it documented at least 10 cases since April in which journalists who were attacked sought governmental help and suffered repeated aggression anyway.
Addressing the UN Human Rights Council last month, Article 19 criticized the efficacy of government protection.
“The protection policies in place are struggling to fulfill their potential; they lack trust, capacity, adequate resources, responsiveness to local needs and challenges, and commitment from authorities,” the group said.
Its new report on Mexico highlights several recent cases in which government programs failed to provide protection.
The offices of the magazine Contralínea were ransacked in June. Because the publication had been a target of past attacks, it qualified for special protection from the government and security cameras had been installed in the offices. But the cameras, destroyed by the invaders, were not connected to any police or security office and served no purpose.
Journalist Said Hernández, who unknown attackers tried to kill in 2012, was “arbitrarily detained” by Oaxaca police and accused of impeding police work in June. Two days later a hooded person tried to break into Hernandez’s home but easily escaped when the police were called.
In 2012, Frank La Rue, UN special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right of freedom of opinion and expression, reported that the lack of protection for journalists was due to “the inability or unwillingness of governments to take effective measures.”
“The root causes of impunity may vary from context to context, but can mainly be attributed to lack of political will to pursue investigations, including for fear of reprisal at the hands of powerful criminal networks, inadequate legal framework and a weak judicial system, ineffectiveness of police forces and judicial bodies and lack of expertise, lack of resources allocated to law enforcement and the justice system, as well as negligence and corruption.”
Article 19 reported that documented attacks on the Mexican press increased by over 50 percent from 2012 to 2013. Between April 1 and June 30, 2014, it documented 87 attacks: 39 physical attacks, 14 intimidations, 13 arbitrary detentions, 9 threats, 4 acts of censorship and 4 legal suits.
Note from the editor: This story was originally published by the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas, the predecessor of LatAm Journalism Review.
